Sikandar Yadav had to pay with his life for turning down nephew Wakil’s proposal to rob his employers’ flat in Alipore, police said on Friday.

Wakil, 26, arrested for the murder, had allegedly stabbed his 25-year-old uncle 10 times and cut his jugular vein at the Judges Court Road flat on Wednesday night.

Realtor Madan Mohan Goenka and his wife had left for Vrindavan on January 6, leaving the 2,000sq ft apartment in Sikandar’s custody.

Wakil, who the police said had planned to flee to his hometown in Bihar’s Banka district, was arrested at Babughat on Friday afternoon.

“He has admitted to the crime,” said an officer. “The uncle-nephew duo ate dinner in the flat and were high on ganja when they picked a fight over Wakil’s proposal to rob the flat. Sikandar rejected the proposal, prompting Wakil to attack him with a kitchen knife.”

The sleuths claimed to have found the murder weapon on him. Wakil’s driving licence was lying in the Goenkas’ flat.

The police said Wakil had tried to rob the flat after killing Sikandar but failed to break into the three locked bedrooms.

“Unable to break open the doors, Wakil apparently spent the night in the room where his uncle was lying dead and left early on Thursday,” said the joint commissioner of police (crime), Damayanti Sen.

A guard of the housing estate — Divine Bliss — apparently saw Wakil leave the South Tower that houses the Goenkas’ flat on Thursday morning.

Before fleeing, Wakil had allegedly taken a DVD player, a few CDs and Rs 3,300 from Sikandar’s room.

The police suspect Wakil had sodomised Sikandar before killing him. “We will get a medical test done,” said Sen.

The sleuths said Wakil had worked as the Goenkas’ help when the family lived in Lake Town. On Wednesday night, he had come to the Alipore flat at 8.30pm, around half an hour after the family priest had left.

The priest, who visits the flat twice a day, alerted the secretary of the building on Thursday morning when Sikandar failed to respond even while he kept pressing the doorbell.

The building’s secretary opened the flat with a duplicate key and found Sikandar lying dead on a sofa, wrapped in a blanket.

The police are verifying Wakil’s claim that he worked as a help at a Ballygunge Circular Road house.